Posted on 11/20/2003 5:51:01 AM PST by Theodore R.
Patton fills various board seats REPUBLICANS CRYING FOUL AT LAME-DUCK MOVE By John Cheves HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
FRANKFORT - Bernie Kunkel waited years for a Republican governor who would appoint conservatives like him to state boards and commissions.
He'll have to wait a while longer.
With less than three weeks left in office, Democratic Gov. Paul Patton is methodically filling every seat on the more than 300 boards that help decide government policy, steer the huge bureaucracy and regulate industries, from the State Fair Board to the Executive Branch Ethics Commission.
Republicans and their incoming governor, Ernie Fletcher, are crying foul. Although Patton has the authority to pack seats with anyone he chooses until Dec. 9, that-doesn't mean he should, they said. Fletcher is urging recent Patton appointees to decline to serve.
"Any additional appointments will be disappointing as Kentuckians overwhelmingly gave us a mandate to bring-real change to state government, and that includes boards and commissions," said Daniel Groves, Fletcher's chief of staff.
Although the Patton administration wants a peaceful transition, it won't relinquish power early, said Bill Beam, the governor's director of boards and commissions.
"We'll be as gracious as we can be," Beam said. "But if there is an appointment to be made while the governor is serving his term, then he should have the opportunity to execute it."
Last Friday, Patton appointed or reappointed 10 people to the scandal-tainted, 11-member Kentucky Racing Commission, including its embattled chairman, Democratic fund-raiser Frank Shoop. All had been serving expired terms.
Yesterday, Patton sent out a news release seeking applications for an opening on the Jefferson Community College Board of Directors, and named more than 20 people to nearly a dozen other boards.
One of those, the ethics commission, settled misconduct charges against Patton on Sunday; it also will monitor the incoming Fletcher administration.
Before Dec. 9, Patton plans to fill seats at 29 more boards, including an $85,000-a-year post at the Public Service Commission, which regulates utilities, Beam said.
Republicans want posts
Meanwhile, some Republicans are impatient for an appointment after 32 years of-Democratic governors.
Only about two dozen boards offer a full-time wage for appointees. But nearly all -- even the Barbering Board and Podiatry Board -- control a slice of life that's important to somebody.
Kunkel, for one, said he repeatedly applied to the Patton administration for a seat on boards related to taxes or land ownership. Nobody replied, he said. Now his rŽsumŽ is headed to Frankfort again, this time to Fletcher.
"I don't think a lot of us from Northern Kentucky -- who are pro-life, who support gun ownership and private property rights -- ever had a chance to serve," said Kunkel, an anti-tax activist in Boone County. "So it's really a shame Patton is filling all these positions now that he's a lame duck."
Seat-packing is a common if controversial tradition at the end of most administrations in Frankfort, as departing governors seek to leave their stamp on government.
In 1991, Gov. Wallace Wilkinson went one step further. With eight days left, Wilkinson named himself to the University of Kentucky Board of Trustees, considered one of the juiciest of plums. UK faculty members and alumni were so outraged that the legislature and Wilkinson's successor, Brereton Jones, rewrote state law in order to dump him.
So far, Patton has expressed no interest in awarding himself a seat anywhere, Beam said.
Appointments will expire
Still, Fletcher's not completely out of luck.
He will be stuck with Patton appointees throughout his term. However, their numbers will diminish as their staggered terms expire, at which point Fletcher can name his own people. At the racing commission, for example, two seats come open in March. The new governor can also choose someone other than Shoop as chairman.
Also, the Republican-led Senate must confirm appointments to 22 boards and commissions, including the Public Service Commission, the Parole Board, the Council on Postsecondary Education and the Lottery Board.
Some confirmation votes could get messy this winter, after the legislature convenes. Yesterday, several Senate leaders came out fighting and accused the lame-duck governor of unseemly arrogance.
"I actually admired Paul Patton and even considered him a friend until last week, when he decided to push for keno and make all these appointments, all at the last minute," said Sen. Charlie Borders, R-Russell, the Republican caucus chair.
"It's like he's somehow more important than the commonwealth," Borders said. "It's like his ego is more important than allowing the next administration to start finding its voice."
Reach John Cheves at (859) 231-1304, or at 1-800-950-6397, ext. 1304, or at jcheves@herald-leader.com.
I suspect that one can read the Herald-Leader for months and not find a Democrat paying this kind of compliment to a Republican. Republicans, however, seem to "need" a Democrat saying something nice about them.
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